Pest Control
by Swallow and Amazon
Summary: Parker enlists Master Tracy to do a little weeding.


Not very many know this about Parker, but he is a keen gardener. He keeps a plot in the kitchen garden of Creighton-Ward Manor, and on his afternoons off he can often be found out there with trowel and shovel, carefully weeding and tending his rose bushes. Few guests know that the berries that dot their custard tarts when they come for afternoon tea at the Manor are the product of Parker's green thumb.

He knows all the tricks for dealing with garden pests. How slugs don't care to cross lines of ash or eggshell. How tubs of beer buried in the soil and changed regularly will allow earwigs to drink themselves quite happily to death. How gentle application of oil of thyme and peppermint will banish greenfly. Parker is an expert.

And Creighton-Ward Manor is an old house, built piecemeal over many centuries as the fortunes of the family flowed and ebbed. Like all old houses it attracts vermin. And here too Parker has become quite the expert in discouraging their egress.

Rats are kept at bay by a tortoiseshell tom named Nelson, with whom Parker has had a long, tenuous détente. The new fibreglass linings to the Napoleonic Era wardrobes keeps moths out of the Creighton-Ward family raiments. Paparazzi, who so often populate the woods hoping for a glimpse into her Ladyship's boudoir are most efficiently dealt with by a brisk, "May I 'elp you, Sir?" from behind the business end of the groundskeeper's shotgun.

But when it comes to the most persistent, resilient and, to Parker's mind, odious of all vermin, the ones who cluster around her Ladyship like aphids around his prize Lady Emma rose, Parker has learned to employ a unique deterrent.

He invites Master Tracy to tea.

Which Master Tracy comes to tea does not matter, though Master Alan is a bit young yet to be fit for purpose and Parker has surreptitiously begun matching his invitations with tidal charts lest the cure become the disease. But in theory, any of the three eldest sons of Jeff Tracy will do equally well.

Though he must admit he has a soft spot for Master Virgil.

Because unlike his two brothers, who may inflame some of the more entrenched parasites with the air of authority they wear like second skins, there is something about Master Virgil's diffident "Aw, shucks, me? I'm just a simple mechanic," attitude, that defeats all resistance.

It's Master Virgil who is here today, balancing Lady Sylvia's bone china on his knee, so that it looks like a doll's tea set and trying to be dainty as he eats a crustless cucumber sandwich.

Her Ladyship's cousin Jeanette, who can always be counted on if introduced as a ringer to these gatherings, simpers, "Oh Mr. Tracy, won't you tell Genevieve about the time you wrestled a polar bear to save a baby seal?"

The way Master Virgil's ears flush pink adds a touch of authenticity that cannot be faked. "I wouldn't say I wrestled her. She was scared and hungry. A couple of good taps on her nose and she retreated."

Parker hands around the éclairs to Lord Rothman and the Honourable Mr Marks, who are each trying to crowd as close as possible to Her Ladyship. "hIncredible story, eh, Sirs? I don't know when he gets time to be as haccomplished a hartist and pianist as he is too. But then maybe the rules don't happly to billionaires the same way they do to the hrest of us."

"Parker," Her Ladyship selects a Mielle Foueille, "Do you have some objection to Lord Rothman and Mr Marks?"

"hWhy, no M'lady. Very nice hyoung gentleman. Good conversationalists, I'd hwager."

"Parker, you are dissembling."

"Don't know much about dissembling, M'lady. Shall I ask Master Virgil, him being of a somewhat mechanical mind, I'm sure he could dissemble anything you like. Or assemble it."

Master Virgil is now explaining how glacial erosion is the real enemy in the Arctic Circle and how later that same day he had gone on to rescue the same polar bear from poachers.

"hI was going to have him take a look at the downstairs boiler, as it happens."

"Parker!"

"Oh he doesn't mind, M'lady. Says he quite enjoys it. And it does so cheer up the maids. I could ask Lord Rothman."

In anyone less refined the noise that comes from Her Ladyship might have been described as a snort. "You'll do no such thing."

"Very good, M'lady. Shall I have Master Virgil alter the topic of conversation? To the spring fashion in gentleman's stockings perhaps? That seems a subject Mr Marks has a good deal to say on. And shall I cancel your dinner with the Chancellor of the Exchequer tomorrow evening M'lady? Only I believe Mr Marks is intending to invite you to watch him play polo."

"Parker?"

"Yes, M'lady."

"Carry on."

"Very good, M'lady."

"She wasn't really angry until she saw me approach her cubs," Master Virgil explains to a bevy of flushed young ladies. "But we had to tranquilise them, see? In order to transport them safely to the reserve. It was when she was trying to protect them that she gave me this." He lifts the hem of his cashmere jumper to reveal a thin ridge of scar tissue, running across abs as cut as a cheese grater.

"More tea, Master Virgil?" Parker asks, as a number of weak-chinned young men disappear into the rose garden, presumably to throw themselves into the ornamental lake.


End file.
